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We went through this on an earlier thread. Mediation is defined as what only Jesus can do. The variant is to say the the OT priests did it but now that's done.

But by definition (as opposed to theological conclusion) mediation is limited to those meanings. "Intercession" gets the same treatment.

So the first several posts are devoted to the exercise perceiving, through the fog of charges of idolatry and blasphemy, that the problem is one of usage.

What contributes to the inefficiency of the work is that this unique usage is not identified because to do so would gut the charges.

Then, when finally the usage issue can no longer be avoided, the argument moves over to the "deadness" of the saints. The contention with the Sadducees is examined. When that proves unserviceable to the contention, those against the intercession of the saints adopt a new usage to denominate the state of being alive with Jesus. One amusingly ripped Abraham's remark to Dives that there was a great gulf fixed between him and Lazarus on the one hand and Dives on the other, and tried to suggest Scriptural warrant for saying the gulf was between the saints in heaven and the faithful on earth.

(Of course, in that parable, Abraham does not say it would be impossible for Lazarus to communicate with Dives's brothers, just that they wouldn't believe him. The effort is clearly to make the language, if not the meaning, of the Bible conform to the contention, not the other way around.)

It's debate by attrition. It's not about what the Faith is, it's about wearing down the opposition by fighting over the same ground again and again.

In addition the the "Deadness of the saints' problem, we also have the "meaning of the word 'pray'" problem. Careless writing by Catholics exacerbates this.

The problem is of the same kind. "Prayer" is assumed a priori to mean an activity which should only be done "to Godwards". Then, by definition doing it to anybody else is blasphemous. So we get to fight for post after post that the words actually can have another meaning, like "appeal" or even "ask".

Similarly with lots of other words. DeMontfort actually calls Mary "divine", which IMHO is careless usage, but then the Anglican theologians during the reign of the Charles s of England were called "Divines".

And in an effort to distinguish between latria and dulia the words "worship" and "veneration" are used. But somebody falls short of mathematically rigorous language and we're off to the races.

It all depends on preferring victory to truth, or a confusion of the two.